Finally YSL’s Image of a Possibly Anorexic Model Banned by the ASA. Was I Was Right?

I was astonished and felt vindicated by an article in the DailyMail Online reporting that the Advertising Standard Authority has banned an ad by YSL that they deemed “irresponsible.”

Here’s the ad:

Please tell me you do not consider this model to be dangerously thin??

The reason I personally feel vindicated is because on February 7th of 2014 I started a petition on Change.Org asking CEO Francesca Bellettini at Yves Saint Laurent to stop using images of painfully thin women in their ads and the backlash I received really shook me up and made me question whether or not I was wrong.

Here’s the article I wrote asking my readers to support my petition and some of the backlash that followed in my comment section:

It is disgusting that you assume this woman is perhaps, “dangerously close to death” or needs to eat a sandwich. Would you post anything about her or her body image if she was 50 lbs. over-weight? I doubt it, and if you did, you’d have more than 18 comments, I am sure. And not happy ones.

I am thin. Very thin. I eat, I am an RN and I can assure you I am healthy. I am just lucky enough to have good genes and an even better metabolism and I am sick to death of people telling me to eat something, or commenting on my weight. I’d never say anything to anyone, skinny or fat. It doesn’t make it right because I am thin that people comment.

Is it part jealousy that people comment? Sure. Just as society has created the illusion that it’s not okay to be fat, they’ve also created the idea it’s not okay to be skinny.

How about we leave everyone’s weight alone and look at the whole picture.

You are rude and pretentious and probably way off base about how sick she may be. Try commenting on an over-weight model and say how she’s one cheeseburger away from a heart attack. See how that goes.

And this one:

Do you have any idea how offensive and harsh your words in this letter are toward thin women???? If you think you are standing up for women of all shapes and sizes you are very mistaken.

You have just told thin women and girls everywhere that they are disgusting to look at and imply that we must all be anorexic if we look this way. I am old enough now to love my thin body but as a teen it was extremely difficult to accept my self and the way I looked.

I guarantee you that you have absolutely crushed the self-image of thousands of girls and women out there who are naturally thin. And every person who is signing your petition is reinforcing this. I understand what your intentions were in writing this letter but you have sorely missed the mark. You have demonized one type of woman in an attempt to make another type feel better. That is NOT beneficial to anyone.

I urge you to re-think and re-phrase your letter to more accurately describe the point you were trying to make. Because you have failed. Miserably. If 15-year-old me had read your words I would have been in tears.

This is the YSL ad image that I took offense with.

If you agree that YSL is irresponsible for using a dangerously thin model, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop over and sign my petition.

We are just 1296 signatures from reaching our goal of 50,000 signatures.

You should also check out the DailyMail article which was written by fashion model Rebecca Pearson who also took issue with the YSL ad. Here’s a snippet from the article:

“(The ASA) called (the ad) ‘irresponsible’ and criticized its promotion of ‘anorexia chic’:

“The ASA considered that the model’s pose and the particular lighting effect in the ad drew particular focus to the model’s chest, where her rib cage was visible and appeared prominent, and to her legs, where her thighs and knees appeared a similar width, and which looked very thin, particularly in light of her positioning and the contrast between the narrowness of her legs and her platform shoes.

“‘We therefore considered that the model appeared unhealthily underweight in the image and concluded that the ad was irresponsible.’”

What do you think? Was the ASA right? And please SHARE WITH THREE FRIENDS who feel the same way.

2 comments

People seemed upset in their comments to you because they are arguing there are real healthy women that are thin. This is true.

It is also true that there are MORE real healthy women that heavier. Where are they in YSL’s campaign?

As someone with a recovery eating disorder I can say it did have an effect on me to see the underweight segment of the population over represented as if that group was predominate and I was weird because I was 5’6 and 135lbs (a healthy weight). Our mass media would have you believe everyone is 18 years old & 100 lbs.

Use healthy women across the spectrum of age, weight, even race. It is hard enough being a woman without thinking you have to be <100 lbs under 20 years old, white, blonde and rich.

Maybe its just because I'm a mommy now, but I think real beauty is in the uniqueness of people and a little light you can see from people with joy. Sorry to ramble on the soap box…